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FROM THE

BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY

COLLECTED BY

■ BENNO LOEWY

1854-1919
BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Cornell University Library
PR 2899.D268

The speeches of George Dawson on Shakesp

3 1924 013 149 681

PR

Cornell University
Library

The original of tliis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013149681

I'^e Speeebes of

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TO THE EEADEE.

Fob the following pages I am indebted to the local daily Qazette and
Post carefully preserved in oUr Beferenoe LitoSry — towards the estab-
lishment of which the late George Dawson so ably oontribnted. It was
my intention to have published those speeches * with a small pamphlet
of my own, issued a few months ago, but to avoid the appearance of
imitating the MoOn, I have decided not to allow the critics to say that
if I shine it is but by a borrowed light.

Shakespeare stands by himself as a dramatist, and it is not too much
to say that George Dawson's speeches on his works, are original, unique,
unlike any delivered by any other speaker on the same subject.

With regard to George Dawson's theory of universal inspiration — ^that
" all Scripture is, given by the inspiration of God," opinions will differ.
To myself, claiming inspiration for Job and Isaiah and denying it to John
Milton and William Shakespeare, has always appeared as illogical, and
inconsistent with the facts upon which any rational theory of inspiration
can be based. ^

But whether the reader agrees or differs, he will appreciate the charm-
ing eloquence, and the quaint illustrations and references of one who
will never more pay tribute to the memory of the Bard of Avon.

Next to my admiration of the speaker and respect for his memory, is
my appreciation of his efforts to create a feeling of reverence for human
genius — a worship of great men — ^which is intellectual and stimulating
— has a tendency to develope the best that is in us — a respect for .some-
thing higher and more lasting than ourselves. The worship of genius,
the immortal part of man, will increase with age and culture, and

* I am, authenticaZ ly informed that there will he a vohi/me of lectures
and speeches published shortly, edited bj his Wife, to which I have great
pleasure in directing public attention.

that which has been sanotimonionaly and sneeringly called 'the fleeting
snn of an hour,' ■will become an object of permanent regard when
rational reason becomes the only guide of intelligent human beings.

"The late George Dawaon" is a sentence not only unfamiliar but
utterly nnappreoiable by many of ns. On reading the following pages
we are reminded of the Uving voice which charmed the hearersi
made friends of foes, and delighted alike those who beUered and those
who diabeUeved.

Bnt, in the words of Cowlesy : —

" What shall we say, since silent now is he,
Who, when he spoke, all things would silent be ? .
Who had so many languages in store,
That only fame shall speak of him in more ! "
Snow Hill, Augnst, 1878. Chables C. Caitbll.

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT THE SHAKESPEARE CLUB SOIREE,

Royal Hotel, April 22nd, 1864.. '

AS members of the Shakespeare Club they had all one object —
to drive off the stage, out of print, out of the shop, and
out of the parlour, all those detestable, fliutilated and altered
versions of Shakespeare, which were a disgrace to 'the natioru A
mutilated Shakespeare, a Shakespeare made moral according to
tattlers and tea drinkers they abhorred and despised, and they
were resolved to do what in them lay to set forth his excellences,
and so to criticise his works, and so to get them represented in
the proper place for them — the stage — as by degrees to turn out
all those base, spurious, and foul alterations, improvements and
changes which made our literature disgraceful On that night
they invited ladies because for men alone to celebrate the
Tercentenary of Shakespeare, would be one of the most un-
gracious, ungrateful, unthankful and barbarous things possible.
If when he was alive William Shakespeare had been invited to
an entertainment where there were to be no women, he would
have been the last to come and probably the first to go away.
For among the excellences of his mighty arid unfathomable mind,
one of the chief was, if women only knew it thoroughly, that
this man was their best friend, because he understood them
better than any man who ever lived. They had reason to mar-
vel how he knew all the passions of men, but how he knew all
the passions and changes of woman's heart passed all under-
standing, and must remain one of the mysteries which a future
world only could clear up. Shakespeare was a man for woman
to love. Those who knew him well called him gentle

Shakespeare — which did not mean only meek and mild, but had
the meaning now attached, when used properly, to the word
gentleman. By this he did not mean the technical gentleman,
not the snob of yesterday, made rich and therefore made great ;
but the man of fine reverence for the feelings of other people ;
the man of tender heart and kind spirit ; the man who always
saw the good and evil of a thing, and who praised the good and
excused the evil, the lover of little children, the lover of dogs,
the lover of women, the lover of nature, the lover of wine in
moderation, the lover of all gracious things in life. All this
was William Shakespeare, who was the greatest gentleman the
country had ever produced. If they doubted this he would ask
them where would they find such a book of etiquette, in the'
greatest sense of the word, as in his plays ; and behind morality
men always needed etiquette. It was not sufficient for a man to
keep the commandments to be loved — they could not love a
man for paying his debts and keeping sober. After morality
they needed etiquette to teach a man the grace of manner, of
language, and of life, which must be added to morality, and
of which Shakespeare was the greatest master. He painted
woman so well that whoever studied the great women of
Shakespeare, studied every grace and charm proper for woman
to^have. Some might say it was impossible for men ever to
understand women, but against this it might be stated that the
two sexes were in this world set to be spies on each other.
Men spied upon woman to find out if she possessed what to
him appeared the crowning point of excellence, and women
soon found out whether men possessed the qualities they
admired but did not possess. Of whatever quality man had and
woman had not she was a fine judge, and had for it a keen dis-
cernment. No woman could paint a woman thoroughly, she
could do it partially, but it wanted a man to do it thoroughly,

and Shakespeare had done it thoroughly. Beginning with Dame
Quickly he had ascended so high as Cordelia, in whom he
depicted all the virtues of womanhood. He knew the universal
nature of women, and all their little weaknesses as well as their
greatnesses. He was not a gaUant man, for gallantry was
nothing more than the ghost .of a dead chivalry. He was a
woman's man, but as for a ladies' man, the miserable mountebank
of the ball room, Shakespeare despised him. He did not call
women goddesses because he knew that he could not live with
a goddess. When a man called a woman a goddess how must
he feci when he saw her eating bread and butter ? And yet
eating bread and butter was not a very wrong thing ! In
describing women he never gave an auctioneer's catalogue of
their charms. Open any book of the time of Shakespeare and
they found women catalogued like pictures, their points set
forth as though they were for sale,, their love described as being
of the earth, earthy ; but open his works and they found he could,
without such catalogueing, picture heavenly and noble women
among the ordinary beings of this life. There was a time in a
young man's life when he wished that women were immaterial,
that they did not eat so much — when he wished they might
have manna to feed upon, and they would eat it out of sight.
Hut this was nonsense they got over in time, arid a nonsense
Shakespeare never shared in. He never flattered women, he
never called them either angels or goddesses, he always called
them simply women and he knew all about them. Every
woman who told the truth must wish she had Shakespeare for
a lover, since the man who painted Juliet must have understood
everything connected with that noble passion. Then if they
mounted from these things to Cordelia, given by God to show
how high a man might rise in the conception of a woman's
character, and how it was possible for woman to arrive almost

8

at saintship on this side the eternal rest. But Shakespeare did
not invent these women, they were the noble women of
England. He was a learned man, possibly not a graduate, but
a learned man, one who knew men and had read English history
well. He had read of Alfred's mother and how she taught him,
and had heard of her of whom it was said —

" Hard was the hand that stniok the blow,
Soft were the lips that bled."

He had followed the history of Woodstock and knew all that
sad side of human life. He had heard the noble story of Margaret
Roper, who when her father was beheaded, with much prayer
got the disseyered head, which she took with her home and
' kept until she died. When she went to her last rest she ordered
the head of her martyred father to be laid upon her bosom.
Death came to see that sight, and the great conqueror must have
then felt that love could outlive corruption and was stronger
than death. These were the reasons why women should love
Shakespeare much ; that he was such a gentleman : that he did
so well understand all their excellences, that he so raised the
ideal of what woman ought to be, and that he so much con-
tributed to the slow effort which the wise men who loved
women had in all ages made to elevate them from the degrada-
tion to which they had been put by unwise and brutal men in
old times. For these things woman's heart ought to kindle in
loving gratitude toward that true gentleman, that man who
loved women so well and understood them so thoroughly — the
great bard of Stratford. As he had said before, it had been
indeed ungracious to sif down and celebrate Shakespeare and
to forget the women. What would have been Lear without
Cordelia, Romeo without Juliet, Benedick without ' Beatrice?
Take away from Shakespeare the women, and they left much,
but they had taken away the greatest and most glowing grace.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SHAKESPEARE

CLUB,

Royal Hotel, Temple Row, April 23rd, 1864.

IN proposing the immortal memory of Shakespeare he said : —
This year was a year of years. Many of them had sailed
tip the world's greatest river, and had been impressed with the
thought of the great cloud of historic remembrance of what it
had borne upon its bosom. He was sure that those gentlemen
from other lands who were present, would pardon him for
saying that the Thames was the river of rivers — without wishing
to be disrespectful to the Seine, or any of the great rivers of
America, he must say the Thames was the river for him, for it
bore upon its bosom the richest freights, washed the fairest
shores, and its praises had been sung- by the greatest of bards.
If any of those present had drawn near to London, or left it by
the most beautiful highway, they must have been struck by the
number and variety of the ships that sailed its waters, they
must have been certain that they were coming to some
great centre of the world. There was the great big ship
which had come across distant seas from far countries, and
there was the little humble ship creeping slowly up the river,
and carrying its humble contribution to the great central
shrine. Then when they came to look at that day, and the
barks of all sorts and sizes coming together in a cluster of
books, cantata, commentaries, plays, and performances j when
they thought of the central ship at Stratford-on-Avon, bearing
its miscellaneous freight, and when they looked at this little
bark of theirs, which was as well-built, better rigged, and pretty
nearly as fully manned as the large vessel, they must believe
that ■ the cause which had brought them together was one of

1«

the greatest in the world ; otherwise men so different in talent
and in every other respect would never be sailing together
towards the same great port, and doing mutual honour to the
memory of the iimmortal bard with which God blessed this
England of ours. He had a notion sometimes that — not talking
much about religion himself, but he hoped feeling it deeply —
as every good thing was given by God, he could not imagine
that William Shakespeare, came by any manner of accident.
Whatever might be considered concerning the divine will with
regard to William Shakespeare, they could not explain what was
the difference between him and any little child born in War-
Wicjcshire on that day. There were those whose theory of human
nature consisted in chemistry, that the difference in genius was
the amount of phosphorous, and that an increase of phosphorous
was an increase of imagination ; there were others who believed
that whether a man was a Deist or a Polytheist depended very
much upon his digestion, and the development of muscle.
He would ask those men whether there was any analysis fine
enough or any scope sufficiently well adjusted to point out the
great difference between Shakespeare and any other child born
on the same day or in the same year ; what were the special cLr--
cumstances that operated upon him, and upon no other English,
child ? Whether they took the phosphorous, the gorilla, or the
digestion theory, or whether they talked of what they did not
understand, either in the low levels of materialism, or the im-
passable heights of spiritualism, they were driven back to this,
that there was something in that man's composition the presence
of which they could not detect, but which they must acknowledge. :
But what it was they did not know^— what it produced they
could understand. God had given to that wonderful mind much
and peculiar power, and when He gave much, it was that much'
to others niay be given. This man's works it seemed to him

11

were planned on a scale much too large for his own generation.
They sometimes laughed at the dull people who took the poet
in hand, hut he had also been dealt with by great minds from
the time of his birth up, to the present, and yet his study
was not exhausted, or a Tercentenary would have been utterly
impossible. Three centuries had passed and he was not under-
stood, in three more, men would begin to understand him, and
in three more, or 600 years from now, they would be able to say
"at least Shakespeare is understood." He looked upon him as
planned with one great intention, that in him would be wrought
out what, in deference to his clerical friends, he would call the
lay duty of mankind. And certainly as the nations of the earth
did increasingly learn the English tongue — as they knew it was
their manifest duty to do — if they embraced it as a duty, and
went on to love it as a privilege, so it would be found that
great men would increasingly coiifess all literatures merging
Shakespeare, all literature devoted to him, and all literatures end,
as they all must begin with him. Though he could not say that
the critics of the great nation (France) they saw so worthily
represented that evening had treated Shakespeare any better
than English critics had done — and if they said they had not
treated him worse that was saying a great deal — all of them
who had seen the last contribution of French literature to our
great bard, would know that France was just finding out his
many excellences, just finding out his universal graces,
and that when the crown was put upon his head — the crown not
of a province or a nation, but of universal empire — one of the
fairest jewels would be that of the French nation, which coming
not just into the true understanding of him had had that under-
standing, and the consequent love, intensified by its being
fresher. His works by producing year by year fresh troops of

12

critics, lovers, and admirers, would become the meeting point
of all races; God confounded the tongues of Babel, and as a
consequence different nations had distinct languages, but why
should not the pride of Babel be undone by ' the humility of
Shakespeare ? Let all people sit at his feet and learn, and then
of one tongue would be all the nations of the world. But should
other nations — as no doubt they would — obstinately persevere
in speaking their own language^ they would all agree with hiia
that the spirit in wliLch they spoke being the same, the mere
dif&culties of language would be small in the scale. By this he
meant that the study of Shakespeare was bound to promote the
unity of mankind. As to Aboriginees Protection Societies he
had nothing to do with them. He did not for a moment
mean to assert that the bard would find a Zulu lover, a Kaffir
commentator, or an original Red Indian admireij but that
that man was sent forth to be a true prophet of the great lay
duties of man, and a representative of the human side of
Divine truth, he was year by year more forcibly convinced.
When later in the day the clergy came in with -iheii little frank-
incense and myrrh, their lateness was pardoned on account of
the sweetness of the incense. Amongst the clergy who held
adverse opinions to those entertained by the Shakespeare
club, there were some noble exceptions, for he remembered an
Archbishop who said the Bible and Shakespeare had made him
an Archbishop, and this to his mind was much more desirable
than that it should have been done by Lord Shaftsbury or Lord
Balmerston. On the other hand there were many who took
the opposite view, backed up by the Dissenters, who were
always too ready to assist them when darkness was their mission.
They must have all read with delight the deKverance of some
clergymen on this point, and they had agreed, almost to a

18

man, that the Bible shall remain in the pulpit, and that on
their reading desks they will lay William Shakespeare,— not
on Sundays but on week days. It might not be on the saipe
lectern as the Bible but upon one of a smaller pattern. If
this were done, empty churches would begin to fill, stone
churches would grown beneath the weight of attentive
hearers, sleepers would be unfrequent, and clergymen would
cease to be looked upon as an anodyne. Thus the great
procession of William Shakespeare marched on. In some
processions the place of honour came last, and the clergy were
now in the place of honour, came in time to give the
benfediction to the motley multitude that had gone before
them. So they found unity to be established, because clergymen
could unite with the laity in drinking, as they were about to do,
in the style that their club did — not in mock solemn silence,
because " he who is dead, yet speaketh," would ask no mock
solemn silence in drinking his health. [The toast was then
drunk, with round after round of sharp, rattling cheers.] '

14

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE MIDLAND
INSTITUTE, April 22, 1867.

''THE IMPROVERS OF SHAKESPEARE."

THAT there was a depravity of the human heart of course
all well conducted people entirely believed, and that there
was a depravity of the human intellect they were almost com-
pelled to believe, when they found that the greatest genius
this country — or indeed the worlds— ever had, was a man
whose works were the most spoiled, the most corrected, the
most altered, and the most misunderstood of any writer;
Shakespeare never wanted mending and he was the most
mended of all. His limbs were straight but every bungling
booby had broken them, in order that he might re-set them.
When he came to shew them how Shakespeare had been
altered, tinkered, and mended, he thought they would believe
with him that there was some dark cloud which had passed
over the human intellect — that there was some damnable
temptation under which man had fallen. It would be necessary
for them to inquire how it came to pass that the man
who had left the clearest MSS. and the most perfect of works
was the man upon whom commentators had exercised their
most wondrous stupidity. Shakespeare's MS. was without
bungle, without blot or blunder, and yet the printers had
made his work the most tangled and troublesome mess that
printers had ever produced. The printers got hold of the
MS. and the result was the worst printed book the world ever
had. Collier estimated the small errors at 20,000, but there

15

were great errors, not to be estimated by their quantity but
by their quaUty, which surpassed all the powers of the mind
to show the numbers of their quantities. Every possible
blunder that a booby could commit or a fool could crowd in,
every error that stupidity could gather together — were all lumped
on to this, the greatest of works, and this, the clearest of MS.
the world ever had. Printers had created jungles of errors and
thickets of blunders, and' commentators had arisen to hunt there-
in. Pedantry, conceit, foolishness, and stupidity had done their
best to obscure the brightness of Shakespeare, till at last the
clearest writer had come to be the dullest, and the man who
had made no messes in 'his MSS. appeared before them in a
guise which it was difficult to pierce through. In reviewing
the various editions, he said the second was very Conservative
in preserving all the errors of the first, and very Radical in
creating new blunders and stupidities. Alexander Pope was the
first man who deserved to be called an editor, but he could do
nothing for Shakespeare. Poor man he did not understand
Shakespeare, who wore his own hair, and was supposed to
have been caught in the wilds of Stratford-on-Avon. Stevens
had manufactured more moonshine — which composed what was
called history than any other man. He showed the puerility
and absurdity of Johnson's and Stevens' "improvements."
He regarded a book written by Rymer against Othello, with
great horror. His book was a warning to maidens of quality, who
without their parents consent ran away with black-a-moors — a
warning to all good wives to look to their linen — a warning
to jealous husbands to see before their jealousy became
tragical that their proofs were mathematical. Voltaire, who
said this country was where they cut off their horses
tails and their kings heads, and where there were many religions

16

but only one fish sauce, was sharply criticised. The greatest
Frenchman was Duci, who published six of Shakespeare's plays
and mended and patched them till Shakespeare would not
have known them. His greatest achievement was Macbeth.
There were no witches in the play, just as in French there was
no Hamlet, although they were kindly told what Hamlet's
Ghost had said. (He gave specimens in French, which created
much fun.) The Germans had taken long to understand
Shakespeare. The Commentators' aim appeared to be not to
paint life as it was, but as it ought to be in their, opinion.
Shakespeare described life as it was ; he did not make kings
necessarily heroes, or heroes kings-. Voltaire took special
objection to the grave-diggers, he said the bard made them
play a game at bowls with skulls upon the stage. But did
they think that the grave-diggers whilst digging any of their
graves would not jest and joke although the rest of the universe
might be in profound sorrow ? Where did they think the under-
taker's man would be, when the parson was saying " Dust to
dust, ashes to ashes " ? why, at the King's Head.

17

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE MAYOR'S DINNER,

Royal Hotel, April 22nd, 1868.
To Celebrate the Opening op the Memorial Library.

HE thanked the Mayor for his generous hospitality and re-
marked that ''odr Shakespeare Club'' which always
dined on the 23rd of April, had pleasure in giving way to a
Corporation which had shown themselves to be one of genius,
intellect, and learning. He thanked the Corporation for their
enlightened and generous conduct in reference to the Shake-
speare Library — the greatest monument ever raised in this
country to the greatest man this country ever produced. In
writing the history of this generation, one of the most important
items would be that the Corporation had given a carte blanche
for the raising a monument to Shakespeare, to consist of all the
Kterature which that wonderful genius had created. Town
Councils Tyere connected with all that was noble, healthy, and
great in England, and he was proud to see ours emulate the'
glories of the Councils that ruled over Italy in the days of her
fteedom. In a few years the Shakespeare Library would be
the quaintest in existence — it would be unique, it was already
one of the greatest curiosities in Birmingham. Lest a few
members of the Town Council might think that a great deal of
money had been spent on a little, he would have them re-
member that a ring on the finger might seem a small thing,
but the beauty of the workmanship, the fineness of the stone,
the admirableness of the genius which had worked upon it,
and the labour used to polish it, formed the true measure of

18

Value. Though the room opened that day was a little one, he
was sure the library would shine as a gem of the first water
on the finger of the Corporation of Birmingham. Could any-
body point out any other Town Council that had met under its
Mayor on Shakespeare's birth-day, or had ever raised such a
monument ? It was not celebrated in English History, and he
was glad ours was the first to do its duty. * * * « xhe
Immortal Memory of William Shakespeare," what a great
subject, and what a feeble exponent ! But of the many things
that might be said — In the first place, as an Englishman, he
maintained England was the choicest place on the earth. He
' didn't wish to be pre-eminent by keeping other nations in the
back ground ; he wished it to be chief among many brethren.
Manufacturers came home in a cold shiver from Paris to say
that we could no longer be supreme in the manufacture of
tea pots. But England was likely to remain supreme in one
thing at least^the genius of Shakespeare. The Germans con-
fessed themselves, with delight, his disciples. The French
were beginning to understand that all their poets combined and
multiplied tenfold could only reach to about the shoe tie of
Shakespeare. The people of the United States were proud that
they spoke the language of Shakespeare. In short, whatever
danger there might be of England failing to be supreme in tea
pots, she was supreme in intellect, and that was the supreme gift.
Kant said two things struck him dumb — the starry heavens and
the sense of right and wrong in the human soul. To these, he
(Mr. Dawson) would add a third — the genius of Shakespeare,
In what was he different from other men? The illustrious
Savan said there was no imagination without phosphorous |^;
another laid great stress on gluten, but leaving these things—
which were all inadequate to explain the mystery of genius-^

19

refuge must be taken in the book of Job, and the. genius of
Shakespeare must be confessed to be the inspiration of the
Almighty^ But it would be asked — was it quite so certain that
Shakespeare was a great man ? Didn't WilUam Cobbett think he
was a good deal overrated ? Cobbett could not find any advice
in Shakespeare about growing turnips. How should Cobbett
know ? How should they whose talk was a cackle understand
Shakespeare, the poet ? He then described the characteristics
of a poet — the seeing eye, the feeling heart, the eloquent
tongue; quoting Burns's exquisite imagery, comparing sensud
pleasure to snow flakes falling on water : —

"A momeiit white, tten gone for eTsr,"
in illustration of the manner in which every day incidents are
spiritualised by the poetic faculty. He concluded by asking
them to drink with heart and soul " The Immortal Memory of
William Shakespeare."

20

OUR SHAKESPEARE CLUB

Royal Hotel, April 22nd, 1871,

"The Immortal Memory of William Shakespeare."

ONCE again he had to propose this toast. Referring to
his illness and absence in 1870, he said — Though he lost
their company last year, he had as they knew the company of
■ strange scenes in strange lands, of Palm trees and Bedouins,
of Camels, and the glorious river Nile. Nor was he deserted
by Shakespeare, his all reaching genius was present in that
strange land, and he beheld Cleopatra as she floated down the
Nile, and thanks to his wondrous skill, Egypt glowed to a
glory borrowed from an Englishman, that all the Pyramids had
not been able to shed upon that woe-begone and God-forsaken
land. With this apology for his absence he took up-
the broken thread of two years ago, 1869. He had to propose
to them a man whom to propose was to stop all
eloquence, and to beggar all thought, for there was con-
fusion in profusion, and he who had the task to choose
often hesitated which road he should take. He who had ne'er -
a coat was ne'er pestered which he should put on, but he who
rejoiced in a multitude of garments was oftentime bewildered
which he should don, and which should have the sweet duty of
exhibiting to the world his multitudinous charms. There were
some men whose life was limited perhaps in its width, small in
its proportion, and arid with barrenness, but speaking of
Shakespeare, it could but recall to mind a short but one of
the bitterest satires of Juvenal, who having Rome for his fieldi

21

and human nature for his subject, said : ".Quicquid aguni
homines, votum, Hmor, ira, volupfas, gaudia discursus," or
as translated for those who, unlike Shakespeare, did not
happen to have the advantages of a Grammar SchocJ, not,
however, in his own language, but as rendered by De Quincey :
— " Yea, all that is done by men — movements of prayer, panic,
wrath, revels of the voluptuous, festivals of triumph or gladiator-
ship of intellect " — there Juvenal stopped ; and there where the
Roman was exhausted, the sublimer Englishman seemed to
begin. Shakespeare touched the Romans and they grew great
under his touch ; he baptized them to his Christianity and they
grew greater than the originals. But when Juvenal had said all
his little say and exhausted all his little stock, the Englishman
born in this changeful climate, in this island of islands, in this
marvellous land of sunshine and shade, of gloom and gladness,
which the world copld not exceed in beauty — where Juvenal
stopped, Shakespeare began. The full meridian smell of flowers,
the glories of nature, the simplicity of the shepherd, the sweet-
ness of the forest, the deep gloom that oaks do throw, — these
things were unknown to the Roman ; but the great Englishman
carried us to the fair forest of Arden, and brought before us
once again the glory of our childhood, and showed us once
more the beauties that lay around us. Although he had pro-
posed this toast many years, the cup was not exhausted, that
mighty fountain never ran dry ; no man ever carried a cup to
Shakespeare's fountain and came away dry, except his conscience
was stained, his soul soiled, his intellect marred, or his noble-
ness ruined and trampled down in the world. He who held
the cup to Shakespeare's fount came home full to the brim
with the water of life — he said it very solemnly — the very water
ef life. Paul himself might have envied his knowledge of
humanity, for he preached best who knew best to whom he

22

preached. Shakespeare was now being studied by the young
as an English classic ; thus surely and slowly the wanton waste
of mind in this couijitry with regard to our literature was dis-
appearing, and that little club had done something to put an
end to that shameful state of things. In teaching, the young of
England werf left unacquainted with the literature of England.
What were Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe, and Chaucer, but a
forest of unexampled greatness — the whole garden of God, full
of bloom, and beauty, and sweetness such as no other literature
or language could give ? * * * They had lived, fought,
and wrestled, till at last their good fortune was to see such a
school book as Shakespeare. Why should he be tinkered
with and altered ? Let all who would do that, study what he
meant, understand what he meant, and what he said. At last,
then, they had condescended to make a school book of the mighty
itiaster. No longer did the mighty master walk about the world
dressed in the queerest of dresses. Poor Shakespeare, they
used to give him a pair of trousers of the reign ©f George III.
We had come to understand that Shakespeare was to have a
grammar of his own, that his language was a wonderful languages
of itself ; and that it was sufficient of itself; not to. be altered,
tinkered with, or apologised for, but to be reverently studied,
set forth and understood. In reference to the bugbear about
the effacement of England, he felt that as long as Shakespeare
lived to be studied, and was studied, there were fevi^ moments
*hen the glory of England could be touched. Yea, if this land
fell into misery, who knew but that the power to quote
Shakespeare might like a mystic touch, enable an Englishman,
when away in other lands, to feel himself a brother, and at home.
* * * In meeting to celebrate Shakespeare there was nO
growing age, no increasing frost on the head, and frost upon the
. head was no guarantee of frost on the heart; ofttirties the

23

snow descended upon the heads of mountains whose hearts
were full of fire. He had seen Etna with a hoary head while
the volcanic fifes still burned below. Count not, then, tnat a
white head meant necessarily a cold heart. If they lived to
the age of the patriarchs, and then took their departure to the
tomb, Shakespeare would be there *ith his book, and turning
to some wonderful- passage, would say — " Did I not tell you
so ?" As men got older he would be just as dear to them as
when young. If they shoiild meet twenty years hence,
although that was not likely, — would to God that it were so —
at threescore and ten, Shakespeare would still be before them
beckoning them on, opening some new object, revealing
some new meaning, throwing upon life some new beauty,
and adding to the glory of youth the calm patience and deep
understanding of manhood. So he had simply once again to
call their attention to the immortal man, the greatest of
mortal intellects, the largest receptical of human emotions ;
and he had the same pleasure, in doing so twenty years ago,
when he loved him with a passion, as at fifty years of age, when he
loved him ■with a passion and with an understanding. Shake-
speare still remained master, supreme, and king, and his
experience was that every year in life would increase their
understanding of him. If therefore they reverently studied
to the end that great man, he would remain to them, what
he had been to many others — the one great guide and
interpreter of man in his greatness and in his lowliness, in his
nobleness and in his meaness too.

24

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE MASONIC

HALL, January 26, 1871.

Under the auspices of " The Birmingham Shakespeare Heading

Club " Mr. Dawson, as Chairman, introducing. Mr. S, Timmins

to lecture, said : —

IF he lived to the age of Methuselah, his admiration of
Shakespeare would grow with his growth. They were
there that night to support a little club which existed for a pur-
pose of the noblest kind — a small club, "apostolic as to its
numbers. This club was sensibly devoted not to the reacling
or the spouting of Shakespeare, but to the study of him. He had
heard him read by men whom he could tell had not a glimpse
of understanding of half they read ; had heard him spouted
and had congratulated himself that Shakespeare was not alive
to hear himself so utterly mistaken and maligned. This
little club stuck at their work because they knew they were
studying things of precious value ; and longed to get at the
beauty and to master the fullness of the originality of the great
author. There was a bloom upon Shakespeare, and a depth
of beauty which required patient study before it could be
appreciated. Perhaps he h^-d not so much knowledge of Shake-
speare as had Mr. Timmins but he had an equal love with-
him. Where there was a parallel of love, and inequality of
knowledge, the knowledge had the preference, therefore he
would get down.

25

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE MASONIC HALL,
February 13, 1872,

Under the auspices of the '■'■Birmingham Shakespeare Reading

Club."

(IVIr. S. Titnmins, introducing the lecturer, said :^he did not
hesitate to say that Mr. Dawson had done more for the
intelligent appreciation of Shakespea;re than any other living
man.)

MR. DAWSON said the Sonnets of Shakespeare discoursed
on two of the master passions, and two of the master
Sadnesses of human life, they discoursed of love and friendship,
of falseness and want of faith, of sin, of contrition. These
Sonnets were no play book, but a leaf torn out of the human
heart, speckled with the life-blood of the man who wrote it.
It was not written for any who did not understand the depths
of human passion. Mild people, eaten up with propriety, lost
in minor morals, who had never cried with David, "Deprofundis
clamavi " who knew not how a man could sin deeply and yet
rise to the highest pitch of penitence and write the loftiest,
book of praise, would probably call the Shakespeare^ Sonnets
naughty; they had better shut up the volume. But those
who remembered that there were passions in the soul that
shook it almost to death, who knew what it was to faint with
emotion, to weep with passion, to lie almost dead with the
over-mastering of feelings — let them open the book ; it was
written for them. The Sonnets must be regarded as beads,
every one of which was curiously and nicely carved, with a
fine finger and an elaborate guidance of genius, but which had

26

a string running through them, and were not single beads but
a necklace. Let them keep in mind that glorious modern book
" In Memoriam," for though the difference between the two
books was almost infinite, the atmosphere totally different^-
the one like a Pagan temple, glorious with the rich full blood
of old, and the other like a Christian templCj sweet with the
chastities and purities of the great faith — yet in method
and art they resembled each other. He would admit that
some of the Sonnets were over-elaborate ; biit where there
was fulness of wealth, all things could be made glorious—
where there was poverty there must be care in expenditure.
Over-elaboration was a pardonable fault; one did not find
fault with a face for having too much beauty in it; and in
these days of slovenly art, unintelligible poetry, and slipshod
oratory, one could bear a little of the over-quaintness of old
times. The string running through the Sonnets was this :
love between man and woman, friendship between man and
man; falseness in woman, falseness in man, sin, contrition,
confession. A question for the student was, were they dramatic
or autobiographical — that was did Shakespeare write them as
he wrote " Hamlet " or " Macbeth," or were they torn out of a
living man's heart ; blood-red, tear-stained, deeply, passionately
true ? He would not say which theory he believed, lest some
should believe the same without thinking. He spoke of the
peculiar language of the sonnets, in which words were
addressed to a man which now were only addressed to
v»romen, and said it was the manner of the time ; and par-"
allel instances could be found in contemporanious writing and
in the English version of the Scriptures, and to many this use of
language by Shakespeare' was a stumbling block ; some shut
the eyes of an owl, and some shrugged the shoulders of a
fool. In those old days friendship and love walked §o near

27

together, that they spoke each other's language. If a
man called his ' friend " sweet " now-a-days, the women
would be up in arms, they would think their manor was
being poached upon — though indeed there were signs that
women were going to lay down such words as unworthy of
the women of the time. On the vexed question as to whom
the Sonnets were addressed, he had no doubt they were ad-
dressed to William Herbert. He read the 8th, 94th, 99th,
102nd, and ii6th. The 8th he selected as an example of
sweetness and subtleness. In the 94th what depths of spirituality.
If there were to be a New Testament ever written, this would
be one of its verses " Lilies that fester smell far worse than
weeds.'' The 9th Sonnet was a specimen of what he always
admired in poetry — exaggeration. Genius, like affection, wrested
with words to make them give its full meaning, but they could
not. The mother with the babe upon her lap made ajljectives
into adverbs, and played tricks with the consonants and vowels,
trying to tell the babe her love, and often an inarticulate, mur-
muring — ^babbling took the place of the insufficient words. The
102nd Sonnet was a fine rebuke to women 'who never believed
in a stock unless there was a good deal in the window. After
reading the 11 6th Sonnet he said that into the seeming
Paradise crept the serpent, the apple was eaten, the fall con-
sumated, the fiery sword drawn, and Paradise was gone.
No writer outside the Bible could touch the soul's sins and
sorrows like Shakespeare. Was there ever a truer, sadder
picture than this ? —

"A bliss in proof, — and, proved a very woe ;

Before, a joy propos'd ; behind, a dream."

28

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT THE SHAKESPEARE CLUB,

Royal Hotel, April 23rd, 1872.

HE could not think how many years he had proposed not
only " The Immortal Memory " but the constant regard,
patient study, and continued priesthood, of William Shake-
speare. For if ever there was a primate of all England,
Shakespeare was that man. Nay, more than that ; looking
into a little book written by a dear lover of Shakespeare, he
remembered the author called him " the plenipotentiary
of the human race." He admitted that was rather a long word
but what did it mean ? Fullness of power. That man knew the
human race through and through, from Caliban to Hamlet,
from the lowest sensualism to the loftiest piety, he knew the
whole human race, and of the thousand characters he had
drawn, every one had got a character of his own. That told
the poet, the artist, the master. He never drew portraits, he
only pushed forward people. To draw portraits was cheap,
the sun would do it after a fashion ; but to throw life into a
thousand characters, and for each of them to be as individual
as though they were living characters, each of them one only,
himself and no other — it never had been surpassed. But this
was not the point he wished to enlarge then. His peculiar
Theism would perhaps shock some, but if it did, it was because
it was a deal deeper than theirs. His sublime Theisni was not
an occasiorial God, looking in now and then on a nation, and
inspiring here and there a prophet — but having every creature '

29

that he made entirely in His love, under His eye, under His
hand, so that every moment, every man, woman, and child,
every grain of sand, every fleck of sea foam, every leaf was
exactly where it ought to be for the eternal good of all. His
Theism was this, that God had never forgotten any man, forsaken
any man, any nation, or any thing ; but that there was nothing
but what He intended, meant, ordered, and arranged. Therefore
in that overpowering Theism, which was the joy of his age, he had
no difficulty about Shakespeare; God intended him, meant him,
sent him, sent him exactly where he was, exactly what he was,
taught him and enabled him to do what he did. Speculating in
sleepless nights, it occurred to him ; Why did Shakespeare
have so comparatively obscure a life ? Why was he such a gentle,
straight-forward, thoroughly natural man that nobody took
much account of him ? He had no eccentricities ; he was too
wise. Why was it? In order that he and his teachings might sink
down quietly into an unthinking race, and that thinking they had
got a book of plays, they should find they had got a commentary
on the gospels, the newest bible, the sweetest, truest teaching of
the truths of the future the world ever had. Were people angry
because he was not a bishop? Had he been a bishop he might
have burnt Puritans or been reviled by them. Emerson said, and
at first, he (Mr. Dawson) revolted against it, because it seemed
to be true, that the fault of Shakespeare was that nothing of the
priest was about him, that there was no conscious attempt to
lift man from what he was to what he ought to be. No con-
scious attempt — that was were it was ; the stupid would receive a
book of plays, and knew not what it had got. If Shake-
speare's works had come as an evangel they would have scorned
and rejected it as a moral treatise ; but only a book of plays —
Oh, they took it, and choice souls here and there knew what

30

it was, and it sank into the world and edition . after edition
came out. A player ; only a player, and only a poet. But
what did a man feel who read Shakespeare ? The sweetest
teaching of gentle, humanising, gracious influences that had
ever been known since the days of the Apostles. If he had
been a preacher the fools would not have heard him, or we
should have had a sect called " The Shakespearian," to do what
most sects have done, dogs-ear the book of their master,
misunderstand his precepts and caricature him before all the
world. That had been the manner of churches and sects.
They dog-eared Moses and Jesus Christ, and drivelled and
dabbled, and messed over every great man that came into the
world, until they had made a sect out of him. In an intolerant .
,and bigotted age he taught tolerance, long suffering, patience,
and mercy. In a barbarous and warlike age, he taught peace
and gentleness; in a day when manhood was considered
to be prowess, he taught it to consist in gentleness, mercy,
and forgiveness. But this man was only a poet, an author,
a dramatist; nobody seemed to know much about him; his
book was brought home, and then quietly it lay, till, like some bulb
in due time, it expanded, and out of this treasure, which would
not have been brought home if it had been labelled " religious;
sect," "politics," or "party," grew the sweetest, flowers and
finest fruitage that had grown out of any man of the
modern world. He and his hearers had long passed those
foolish stages where divines and pious people discoursed
whether Shakespeare was a moral writer, — if he were only that
he (Mr. Dawson) should not care much for him. He might
then put Shakespeare along with Mrs. Barbauld, Dr. Doddridge,
and Dr. Watts. Morals! Shakespeare was above morals. There
had been no sweeter preacher of the religion of Jesu s Christ since ^
Christ lived than William Shakespeare. The gospel of Jesus

31

Christ was not morality, was not teaching men how to keep
themselves clean, but in teaching men the divineness of forgive- ■
ness, of perpetual mercy, of constant patience, of endless
peace, of perpetual gentleness. If they could shew him one
who knew these things better than this man, let them shew
him. He knew him not. Shakespeare taught precepts too
good to have been received if men knew what they were taking.
There were things in Shakespeare that he would have been
burned for if he had not been a player. There was heresy
enough to carry him to endless stakes, political liberty enough
to have made him a glorious Jacobin in evil days and carried
him to destruction and doom. If he had appeared as' a divine
they would liave burned him ; as a politician they would
have beheaded him. What would the Tudors have made
of him if they had been wise enough to understand him ?
God made him a player. He did not ask for Shakespeare that
he taught anything entirely new. He valued the scientific man
according to the newness of his discoveries and the strangeness
of his work, but in the human heart there were no fashions and
customs. Shakespeare dealt with the secret of tears, . and the
anatomy of tears had never changed. What was the crowning
, glory of men ? It was mercy. To him the eminent beauty of
Christianity was that it always preached God merciful, at all
times and utider all circumstances, and he knew no human
chorister who had lifted up so holy an Amen to the sweet cry
of the perpetual mercy of God as the English William Shake-
speare. His were not merciful days, but fierce, fighting, stern,
bloody, barbarous, and this man whom people thought simply
jolly, wrote such lovely books that now the world treasured them
in hundreds of gditions. Who could tell how many people had
pondered over them ? and they taught this^ — that kindness was
nobler far than revenge. Shakespeare's being only a book of

32

plays, the sinners bought it. Some of us seeing " Divinity ''
marked on the back of- a book, did not purchase it. And was
it not a precious thing that the world had been taken in ? Was
it not charming that this man who never looked a parson, that
never wore bands, that never was smug, that liked his glass,
loved the world and enjoyed it — was it not a beautiful thing that
this man embalmed in his book the lessons of peace, gentleness,
patience, and long suffering? Who could tell 'when we con-
sidered the thousands of souls that had learned the lessons of
Shakespeare, how much he had done to humanise, nay, to
Christianise mankind ? He was no priest, he waved no censor,
and stlink the world with no incense. All the fathers boiled
down into one could not hit the heart of humanity like this
poor poet player. He did not try to make men better, he had
no need ; he only needed to write and he gave an inheritance
of betterment that would last the world as long as it lived. His
doctrine distilled as the dew, and many a man who had read
the " Merchant of Venice,'' and that sad drama of a sinful soul,
and that terrible attempt to pray, of the King in " Hamlet,"
had read homilies more precious than the homilies of the
Church, lessons sweeter than had fallen on the world since the
days of the Apostles. Those who had read Shakespeare found
the Scripture true : " Entertain strangers, for thereby some
have entertained angels unawares." He opened his house to
Shakespeare, and found he had entertained an angel messenger
of the Almighty God.

38

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT THE SHAKESPEARE CLUB

Royal Hotel,, April 23rd, 187J.

NOW ill fixing on what 1 shall say to you, it is natural that
in a company which may be almost looked upon as a
brotherhood— for there is hardly a man here whom I may not
reckon as almost a brother of mine in kindly feeling, in manly
love of the old Elizabethan kind, when men were not ashamed
to call one another dear, and love one another as men ought
not to be ashamed to love. It is natural, I say, that I
should look upon the age at which Shakespeare died. That
age is mine. But I call to mind the privilege he had which is
notm ine, and, as far as I can see, it will be long delayed, and
that privilege is what is called retiring from life. Now I don't
know in the history of mankind anything so utterly wondrous,
as the retirement of Shakespeare, as it is called, from life. He
retired when he was comparatively young, but remember he did
not throw up what he had never known ; he did not affect to
throw away the pomps and vanities which he never had
the opportunity of trying. That man had moved in one
of the heroic ages of the "world, he had moved amongst
the most splendid group of men the world had ever seen.
Old Jewry, old Greece, and old Rome had lived that a
still nobler race of men might be formed. He had walked
all familiarly with such men as Drake, Frobisher, Raleigh,
Gilbert, Cecil, Southampton, and Bacon. You will agree
with me that this world never did see a constellation

34

of men so glorious as those he knew. » * * If you want
to see the glories of old Rome revived you have to go to Shake-
speare, and when he takes pen in hand Julius Caesar lives as he
never lived before, and Brutus is truer to himself than' in his
great time of old. The middle ages start into life at his touch ;
and if there is one reason to regret he did not know Greek well,
as he appears not to have done, it is that he did not draw
the character of Pericles, and that Marathon and Salamis
are not made more. glorious than any Greek could make them.
* * * He had known the greatest Queen the world ever
had, he had seen Queen Elizabeth in all her glory, anjd I am
old fashioned Englishman enough to believe there never was
such a sight. Queen Elizabeth was beautiful when young, and
I do admire the men of England who thought her beautiful
when old ; men as chivalrous as the man who looks upon the
wife of hisyouth, and sees but her youth ; in her decrepitude,
sees but her early beauty and grace. * * He had walked
with the nobles, lived with them, and loved with them. * *
He had seen men heroical, women lovely, the state glorious.
He lived on the verge of the most heroic things the world has
ever seen. * * Who reads his sonnets, as I read them, knows
he had loved, and sinned, and suffered, and repented * * *
Men have retired from life when they had sucked it dry, and
scorned that, the sweetest juices of which they had lived
■ upon. * * It is easy to find fault with what you have lost
the passion to enjoy. Shall this man turn monk and waste
the latter half of his life, because he thinks he wasted the
former half, and weary the God he has forgotten by drivelling
out his praises in endless reiteration? He was not such a
fool. He turns no monk * * does fiot build a half-and-
half concern and live in it in an intermediate state, and by
forgetting all beauty and geniality of life, try to prepare him-

35

self for the next world. Not he. He never got a hair shirt— »
nothing of the kind. * * There was nothing more
wonderful than this in history — the greatest man retires frora
life into life; he retires from its shows and realities and
finds the simple life of Stratford-on-Avon, the men and
women there, the nature around him, the daily life of the little
place wide enough, large enough, good enough, and true enough
to finish his days in. He had no heroics about mountains, did
not believe that the higher you get above the sea level the
higher you get above the vulgarity level. * He had no dream
that because you can hardly breathe, therefore you are fit for
heaven. There was the River Avon, enough of beauty ; it
reflected day by day God's eternal sky above it. There were
enough of old English flowers of which he had sung so sweetly.
He did not, like some intelligent Englishmen, fly to foreign
climes in the hope of finding themselves of more importance
than ever they could be at home. Not he. He finds Strat-
ford-on-Avon — its. lovely scenery, its green fields, its soft
flowing Avon, its sweet undulations, quite enough for him. I
know no place more honoured than Stratford. He was born
there by accident. He came there by choice. * * Shake-
speare was wiser than King Solomon — for when he had had his
fill of the cup he said, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'' This
wiser man who had all Solomon and something more, who had
been grown ip better soil than Solomon, closed his life without
one bitter report about it. He was one of the men who never
wrote anything about vanitas vanitatiim. He came back to
the old English life, and died in quiet enjoyment of those
blessings which he thoroughly understood, and his sweet paint-
ing of which has never been excelled. Think of this ; how he
tried the world and never abused it, and came back when he
had done with it to its sweetest, homeliest things, and died as he

3S

had lived — the simple, modest, much-enjoying, sympathetie
man, tolerant of everybody, loving everybody, and, I doubt not,,
loved by everybody too.

37

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT, THE SHAKESPEARE CLUB,

Royal Hotel, April 23rd, iS^jf.

HE thought it well to remind them that, without any
very nice antiquarianism, this year was the 400th
anniversary of the introduction of Printing at Westminster.
The date sufficiently accurate for all wise purposes was 1474. In
no company rtlore properly than in that might they remember
that most wonderful event, happening in the most august place,
perhaps, that the world had — for so he regarded Westminster.
If they looked at the beauty of its building, the scenes that it had
witnessed, and the noble men who were gathered there in their
graves — if they remembered that there the first English book was
printed, that there the English Parliament had for centurifes sat,
— there was no place in the world, except perhaps one or two
which should be nameless, that called up all the best feelings
of a wise man's heart ftiore than Westminster. Of course Shake-
speare himself had very little to thank the printers for of his
own time or those that immediately succeeded him, yet those
who were assembled that evening owed to printing an incalculable
debt ; since but for it, Shakespeare might have remained the
privilege of the few. He had some remembrance of having
^'endeavoured feebly to express his sense of the wonderful power
ef Shakespeare as an artist ; how he understood the first great
rule of art, that there must be beauty ; how he knew that
beauty was only the form ; and how the soul he had put into the

88

form was goodness. They had dwelt sometimes on Shakespeare's
happy life, and the way in which he had tried the things that this
world thought great, and found they were not great enough for
him. He also remembered pointing out to them, as they got older
Shakespeare grew greater, and that Coleridge was right when
he said that with every accession of wisdom and experience a
man gained he still found Shakespeare was as much above him
as before ; as they grew, he grew ; and as they greatened, he
greatened. It was now becoming somewhat difficult for him to find
■a fi:esh theme, and yet it ought not to be so, for remember as age
fcegan to steal upon some of them they ought to know more of
Shakespeare than others before them, who looked very little
more than lads, could possibly do. While most of those present
-had known the-glories of gain, some of them had known the
bitter sorrows of loss, and he who had known nothing but gain,
had not known the richest beauties of Shakespeare. When
the shade of death was on a man, and the sense of loss was
•great^rwhen the grasshopper became a burden and the
daughters of music began to fail — then was one of the greatnesses
of that great poet for the first time truly understood. Though
young people liked to play with sorrow, older men found he was
a giant too great to be played with ; they had wrestled with him
and had their fall. Therefore with every year there came some
new merit, some new beauty in that great poet, and they might
take as true the words of Johnson who said very felicitously'^^
" The stream of time which is continually washing the dissoluble
fabrics of other poets, passes without injury the adamant of
Shakespeare." Now that was said more than loo years ago;
it was true then, it was no truer now, but the truth was now
more apparent for the stream had had loo years more work
and had washed, nothing of Shakespeare away, but only some
of the absurdities of his commentators, and' the foolishness of

39

his critics. The longer the stream washed the less power it
seemed to have over the adamant. On the present occasion the
question naturally arises " What is the secret of the eternal
• youth of this man, and how came he to defy the attacks of
time?" Just as the l3.wyers went to their case book to learn
;the Jaw of the case, so the wise man who was a student of
human nature went to the great dramatist to learn the laws of
-human nature. The lawyers even in a certain long and famous
trial might with advantage have consulted Shakespeare, for then
would their metaphysics have been more clear, and instead of
airy possibilities they would have had the proved probabilities of
human nature. Shakespeare had an amazing advantage that he
was an observer without preconception. Now he who should
approach poetry with the canons of mathematics would be a
.fool for bis pains and a bungler in his results. The student of
physics was under the control of mathematics; the student
of poetry was not. Many of the students of human nature, if
they could be called such, were under control, having their
preconceptions either metaphysical or theological. They would
find preconception was fatal to observation. Now Shakespeare
observed just what was before him. He had no ism, no theory ;
when he saw a man he did not trouble what was his faith ;
if he looked at a woman he had no prejudice either for or
against her, and the consequence was that he of all men had
set down with an accuracy which time could not shake and
experience, always confirmed, the exact state of the case with
regard to the human passions, fears, desireSj failings and weak-
nesses. They might depend upon it that was why he lived for
ever. Shakespeare was not there- to say what human nature
ought to be, or what St. Augustine declared it to be ; he was
there to say what he found it ; and as he took in the whole
range from kings to beggars, without preconception, he was the

40 '

most thoroughly fit man to be an observer of human nature.
His observations therefore were never out of date. Then there
was the other feature of Shakespeare, he used all mouths, but
whoever spoke and whatever was done, goodness must be the
result. He was the most pious man he had ever met with in
his studies — the best religious teacher and the most brave and
courageous apostle of modern times. However little foolish
people might haggle over single passages, Shakespeare was
always a preacher of goodness. In a warlike age he was a
lover of peace, before the peace society was heard of he
had preached their doctrines better than they could ; duelling
he put down as stupidity and wickedness; slavery he hated;
caste he abhorred. In these days when people were calling
out for a basis for ethics, he could if he had time make out of
Shakespeare a school book of ethics for School Boards. Through
whatever mouth he spoke, Shakespeare taught the same great
lesson that men should dwell together in kindness and charity.'

(On this occasion Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. (then
Mayor), thanked Mr. Dawson in the name of the town for the
services he had rendered to the intellectual, social, political, and
corporate work of the town for a period of thirty years, for it
was just that time since Mr. Dawson appeared in Birmingham
as pastor of Mount Zion Chapel.)

41

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT THE SHAKESPEARE CLUB,

Royal Hoteli April 2jrd, i8js.

WHAT he should say that evening he did not remember
to have said before j but if he had done so and valued
it he should say it again. If it was old, it was better for being
old, and if it was new, it would have the charm of novelty-
Every year taught something fresh about Shakespeare. He
learned nothing new about his biography, but he had long
ceased to fret about that. They knew as much about him as
they wanted to know— his soul, his spirit, his hopes, his
aims, his passions, his desires, his fondness, and his failings —
they were written in his works. The latest novelty said about
him was that if he had lived till now, he Would have been an
Ultramontane. He had spoken about that the other evening,
and now simply dismissed it as the last cobweb spuh by an
over-worked German student. In America he found another
controversy being carried on, that old threadbare subject they
had discussed years gone by — that Shakespeare was Written by
Lord Bacon. He believed there Were few men in this town
who believed that now. To him it was utterly inconceivable-
Internal and external evidence were lacking, and when they had
neither it was difficult to support anything. He was prepared
against any gentleman to show that Lord Bacon was written
by Shakespeare. Much of the commentation on Shakespeare
arose out of two great impatiences— one that we had too scant
a biography of him in the vulgar sense of the term, and the

4S

•ther that he had had no regular classical education. He should
be ashamed to he thought the advocate of an irregular
or scanty education. Some of them knew too well what would
have been done but for education. They valued it too much
and strove too much to make it common. He could not
suffer however, even masters of grammar schools, dons nor
doctors to limit the prerogative of genius. Lest it should be
thought, however, that it was necessary to genius to be irregularly
educated, uncultivated and wild, they could point to the two
great masters of genius, Milton and Goethe. Shakespeare was
loose, and wild, and irregular, didn't go to school much — and,
if he did, neglected his studies with that persistent truaintism. >
some great men have been guilty of. Whilst therefore worship-'
ing Milton and Goethe, they thought the mission, of the
schoolmaster was not necessary to genius. The greatest wit the-
world ever had (Swift) had an, irregular education. Pope, too^ ,
read what he. liked, when he liked, where he liked,, and, how her
liked. He had two or three seedy schoolmasters, and was.under •
their care a very short time. Johnson read what he.likedj, was'
lazy when he liked, went to college and distinguished, himself ;
thereby leaving undone things which he ought to have done;
Goldsmith never did anything he ought to have , done. He
neglected to write ballads the things he oiight to have done;
His education, was irregular, yet what delightful touches of'
genius, what, love and charity, and what, a, genial soul he had..
Then the ploughman of Scotland who touched the (heart of his,/
nation, and, thrilled it as no other nation had been thrilled;
before, until Scotland grave and grim, and Calvanistic, had to-:
forgiwe,his sinful childhood, and almost,made a rent in its creed:;
in the hope that such a soul should be taken into grace. They.'
must aUiadn(iire,liisi genius,! reverence his charity, mourn his fate.,;
* * * Here were men of consummate gfiniiis; Yet here was.;

43

iShakespeare to be annihilated, turned out, sunk into a shadow,
a kind of appendage to Lord Bacon, because he had not had
a regular education. Therefore he was obliged to lay down the
proposition, which he should not venture on in any other
company— that education was not necessary for a man to be a
Shakespeare — and that no amount of education would make a
man into a Shakespeare. He was thankful that Shakespeare
was not an educated man. He knew enough of the old world to
catch its aroma^ and understand its universal humanity, without
being classical enough to sell his own genius and take to be a
Greek. He would rather have' the Julius Caesar of Shakespeare
than anything from the pen of Mr. Browning. Shakespeare's
work was to teach the heart and sound the depths of human
nature. Did he need to go to school for that ? He had Ann
Hathaway and that taught him all about love, and he dared say
about hate. He got his education from simple things. So might
they all. * * Perhaps there was a .contested election for
Beadle at Stratford which would make him understand the
Montagues and Capulets. Who cared about Shakespeare's
mistakes ? If he liked to put a seaport in Bohemia the speaker
did not care. He was rather glad he did so. Shakespeare's
education came from the blooming flowers, the falling rain — from
loving a woman older than himself, and perhaps being dis-
enchanted "afterwards. He had Plutarch's Lives. He went to
London and what men he saw! Raleigh, Drake, Sidney,
Frobisher, — the men of the Elizabethian period and Plutarch's
Lives were education enough for any man to do as Shakespeare
did. He loved Ann Hathaway and had seen Queen Elizabeth,
that was an education. After this they must not have people
saying '• I have had no education, I am a man of genius," The
question was "are you a geniu's." If a man was uneducated and
was not a genius, it was a dismal look out. * * If Shakespeare

4,4

had been only an L.L.D. — if Oxford had only conferred on him
the title of D.C. L. and Cambridge had joined chorus — would
not it have been more comfortable ? If a copy of Latin verse
and the trochaics he wrote at school could only be produced
would not his Othello be more understandable ? If he had
only been a Fellow of the Royal Society they could understand
the troubles and sorrows of King Lear better ! If he had been
an F G.S. Macbeth would have been easy to comprehend, and
if he had taken holy orders and entered the church — how easily
they would have understood the mysteries of Hamlet. If he'
had been a bishop could they not comprehend his pleadings for
charity? But being onlya poor man, living at Stratford, loving
a woman Older than himself, being suspected of deer stealing,
and going to London to cadge about the Globe Theatre — how
did he know Hamlet and Macbeth? How could he know
Juliet ? He would not even allow that Shakespeare had been
to Italy, as some people claimed — though he would admit that
he had been to Dover. He neither needed to learn Greek, nor
to go to Italy, nor to know French, nor Italian. His eyes were
bright' and he had a large, passionate, sympathising heart.
That was sufficient to account for all he had done- He hoped
he had shown them that almost all the crotchets about Shakes-
peare arose out of an ignorant impatience that works so great
should have been produced by a man whose education, in the
scholastic sense was so lamentably irregular, and so deplorably
small.

45

SPEECH DELIVERED

AT THE SHAKESPERIAN CLUB,
• Royal Hotel, April 32, 1876.

BEFORE proposing the toast of the evening, he alluded to
the tragical death of Lord Lyttleton, which occurred only
a few days before, and spoke very highly of him as " a peer,
a scholar, a gentleman, polished, cultivated, genial, an English-
man of fine type, a lover of all that was sweet, of all that was
honourable, of all that was right, and of all that was good. He
spoke of him as being a man whose qualities were of the rarest,
truest, and noblest character.''

He then alluded to the misplaced indulgence of the Club
which made him President about the nineteenth time. Though
he admitted the subject was one which would never wear out ;
nevertheless, however excellent a string might be, the cunning
of him who played upon it might lessen, and with the best of
will there might be a decay of power. He would not have
them imagine that nineteen years nineteen times told could
possibly exhaust all that could possibly be said about
Shakespeare, but he would not have them forget that it was nqt
given to all of them to have nineteen times the opportunity of
showing how easily a well might run dry or how quickly a
stream might cease to flow. If, however, it were possible to
think over all that had been said on the nineteen occasions
referred to, it would hardly be possible to say the same things
again, for, though time may damp the fire, it might increase

46

wisdom. The second thoughts of a man might be better than
his first, and it was possible that the best wine had been kept
till the last. He did not think that was his case, and he very
much feared it was not. The time was when with almost
vexation and anger they thought of the exceedingly calm way
in which England seemed to have received Shakespeare during
his lifetime, and bemoaned the little impression he made.
They were almost angry with their forefathers. But there was
a second view of that, which was that England was so great at
that time that Shakespeare could not astonish it. If they
remembered that what was said of Lord Bacon was true of him,
that within, his view and time were born all the wits that could
possibly help or serve a nation, they would easily be able to under-
stand that England could not be astonished in the days of Shake-
speare. He presumed that no star was astonished at the glory of
another star, but the stars of lesser glory were so accustomed to
their lesser glory that they looked on brighter stars without envy
or undue admiration. When a man had in his view Bacon and
all the great men who surrounded that glorious " King "
Elizabeth, he thought it was a sign of national greatness and
excellence that Shakespeare should have come and gone trailing
so little glory and marvel after him. They used to be
impatient they knew so little of him, now they thought
it a mercy they knew no more than they did. He
did not know that a knowledge of Poets added, much to the
enjoyment of their works. When -he looked at Pope, his
appearance and some of his ways, his poems gained very little
from the look ; when he looked at Wordsworth, his greatness
gained nothing by his littleness ; and when he looked "at Byron,
his fiery erratics and estatic madness, he did not know that his
poems gained anything by a knowledge of his lordship's person.
He did not know that a minute knowledge of Homer would add

47

to the " Iliad," and he was exceedingly glad he knew little
about Shakespeare. Let them remember he who knew his works,
knew the man, and the vulgar impatiente to know dates and
archaeology, to gather together the fowl bones he had picked
and thrown away — was to him a poor desire to know the shell
and husk of a man whose whole heart, soul, and spirit, were in
every page that he wrote. He did not care about the
archaeologists in this business, and wished they would shut up.
All they could do they had done— and when men showed the
foundations of the house in which Shakespeare lived, and
covered those foundations with wire work, then he thought it
was time to close that department and turn to the solids, the
real life of his soul, which was immeasurably better than the
mere archaeology of a poet. Perhaps at one time they were all
impatient he was so calm and careless. He did not appear to
have joined any party, to have rushed to any poll, for voting he
appeared to care little, and for the politics of his day still less;
There was a time when they almost wished he belonged to a
party, but now .they were thankful that no body could claim him,
though all had tried. It was amusing to see how people had
laid their hands upon him and tried to get him to go to their
meeting house. The Papists had said he belonged to them, he
would not say what Shakespeare's reply would have been had he
been in the flesh — and the unbelievers of all sorts had ranked
him as one of their apostles. The fact was he was- above them
all ; he sympathised with all of them but joined none. * *
He had no doubt that Shakespeare drank his beer and smoked
his pipe, and he rejoiced in him as having common, sense in
perfection. * * He left a will which showed he had some-
thing to leave ; they were told he had two beds, and that he
left jhe second best to his wife. The lawyers had rushed in to
vindicate hisreputatiori by shewing that the best bed was rightly

48

willed by some sort of primogeniture, and went somewhere else.
* * He admired his completeness and healthiness. The
east wind blew around him as it blew around men's houses,
and it found no creaking in him ; he was one of the , truest,
simplest, soundest men that ever lived. Shakespeare's sense
of humour was perhaps the finest the world had ever seen, and
it was one of the most priceless blessings with which man could
be endowed, one of the most wholesome and necessary gifts in
passing through this world, the eternal contrast between the
great and the small which only provoked a smile, and with a
wise man never ended in a sneer— that perpetual seeming jest
when they thought of a King in his finery, and that King sleep-
ing and possibly snoring in bed. That humour went all through
life. He (Mr. Dawson) saw humour in all things, sometimes
unintentional. If he opened his New Testament it was there.
For instance, that public meeting described in the "Acts
of the Apostles " where the people roared for two or three
hours, and who, not knowing what it was about, filled up the
time by saying " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and that
speech of the town clerk— there was nothing in Shakespeare
that could exceed that in humour. Then look at the uninten-
tional humour of Peter waiting in expectancy of the greatest
gifts and his memory full of the solemnesb-of histories, said, " I
go a fishing," and the great honest man went away to fish — he
had no estatics to do, he had fish to catch. The humour of
Shakespeare is always hearty and wholesome, he never made
mock at men, but he loved, everybody because he understood
everybody. Thete were very few times when his great gifts led
him to paint anybody detestable. There was a wretch they
would remember in "Measure for Measure,'' who was the most
irredeemable blackguard that possibly ever was drawn even by
Shakespeare; but he could not even dismiss poor Falstaff, with-

49

out making him babble of green fields. As for clowns the
world was full of clowns, and he was the wise man who liked to
watch their paint, their pig -tails, and their follies. .Shakespeare
knew why Kings kept jesters, clowns and fools. Everybody
must have times when they could talk without buckram and
restraint, and anybody surrounded by courtiers must have
longed for the presence of a fool, one to whom he could tell
his secret thoughts, and to whom he could make fun of the
Lord Chamberlain, silver-stick, copper-stick, pewter-stick,
and others * * * A course of Shakespeare would make
toleration a man's humour, until at last he saw something
pleasing in everybody. He rejoiced to see the growth of
toleration of men towards one another, and amongst the causes
that had made that larger spirit of to-day more a temper of men's
minds than a principle of their politics, he counted the increased
study of Shakespeare. Not that he taught anything new in
these things, but he taught it in so seductive a manner, that
men sat down to read him crabbed and rose from reading
mellow, ripe, kindly and generous. He had found from diligent
study of Shakespeare the increase of all those things that men
most love, a decrease of all that men ' least admire : he
found that Shakespeare ministered far more to kindness, long
suffering, patience, geniality, and grace, to righteousness and
iove, to jollity and mirth, than he ministered to envy, hate, pride
presumption or pretence ; when he poured out his oil it was
wholesome, full of light, and life, and love, and truth. He
appealed to them if Shakespeare had made them less genial, less,
gracious, less generous, less good tempered, less good humoured,
less mirthful, less kindly, less full of power to enjoy this wondrous
world and all the good things that were therein. For his own
part he could say that the man had enlarged his horizon, deep-
ened the little good that was in him, ministered never to what

50

was evil. He therefore looked upon him not as a great genius,
but as a great teacher, who had given the greatest of all lessons
that a human teacher could give. Increase of knowledge in a
wise soul was increase of love.

51

ON "HAMLET."

Delivered at the Masonic Hall wnder the auspices of the
Midland Institute.

ME. DAWSON began by saying tbat tbe first general
canon for the interpretation and study of Shakespeare
was, tbat be was always rigbt, and tbose wbo differed from
bim were always wrong ; and tbe second was, tbat wben a
student came to any passage tbat be could not understand, it
was simply an invitation to study it till be could understand it.
Tbe world bad never been able to leave Sbakespeare bebind-
Otber autbors and otber books became out of d.ate, and were
studied simply because tbey were curious as antiquarianisms,
illustrations of dead matters — tbey bjecametbings of arcbseology
ratber tban tbings of living study. But no man ever yet tbat
was a student of Sbakespeare was able to leave him bebind ;
no man ever found be was able to forget bim ; no man ever
found, in coming back to Sbakespeare, tbat be did not come witb
a new power to understand. As tbe student deepened in wis-
dom, theabundantwisdomof Sbakespearebecamemore revealed;
tbe world's accumulation of knowledge did but make Sbakes-
peare more loved, more modern, and more new. Jobn Kemble
said once tbat in every copy of Sbakespeare tbe ;part most
thumbed was "Hamlet," and tbat was so, just as in a copy of the
Bible, tbe blue and gold of tbe binding was most defaced where
David's Psalms and the Gospels occurred. The noblest kiud of
biading a book could have was, to be worn dark by tbe fingers
of tbose wbo bad studied it well. As a drama " Hamlet " was

Hot the best, a s a tale it was not the most tragic, but it waS
the play that men had most loved wherever English was the
native tongue. He proposed to refer to what appeared to be
the most diificult passages of the play, and these would bei
found to be such passages as related to the more intricate
workings of the human mind. He would start with the
character of Hamlet himself. And first they must get their
minds clear of that popular portrait of Hamlet, as played by
one of the Kembles — a romantio-looHng youth, dark-eyed,
'darkrhaired. Hamlet was nothing of the sort. He was a
Teuton proper — so much so, that some had even said that
Shakespeare intended the characters of Macbeth, Hamlet and
Shylooh to be the exponents of race ; Hamlet standing forth as
the personification of the Teutons, Macbeth as a personification
of the Kelts, and Shyloch as a personification of the Hebrew.
He did not think Shakespeare had any iutention of the kind)
for this notion about race was comparatively new-fangled and
modern ; but that Shakespeare, knowing Hamlet to be a Teuton,
made him a Teuton, was abundantly clear. What had your
dark -haired romantic-looking hero, with a touch of the brigand
about him.; to do with Scandinavia ? Thinking, pondering,
speculating, refined, thoughtful — what had that to do with the
Italian race, the Roman typOj or the Keltic variety ? Hamlet
was yeUow-haired, blue-eyed, large^bodied ; inclining, as the
Teuton race did, to bigness and coarseness. He went to scale
weU, and — it might be a vulgar test — they would find that,
other thyigs being equal, nations that weighed well were sure
to be at the top of the nations. With Hamlet's physical
peculiarities there were the Teutonic mental peculiarities, —
an addiction to reflection, a very large well-developed interior
life, a perpetual gaze into the internal life, conscience as the
test of all things, conscience as against tradition, conscience as

53

against formal reKgion, nonscience as against prie&ts and their
laws-;— the liberty of man, the privileges of the soul as against aU
porporations, and churches, and rules, and traditions, and laws,
Teutonic people were very subjective, tp use their own phrase,
and their injaginations, their inner life, were as real, or more
real, to them than what senses taught or what came from with-?
out. Their manners were rough, their habits often coarse,
their physique big, their tongues not always poKshed ; and if
these things were well kept in niind, the Samlet of Shakespeare
would be -understood. There was very little of the hero
about him. On.e of the best lights shed on the mental charac-
ter of Hamlet was by Coleridge, who said that, if he might be
pardoned the presumption, he and Hamlet were very much
alike. There was not much presumption ii; saying that ; and
if there were a Httie, the exactitude of the parallel, p,nd the
fine light shed by something they knew or something less
knowi}, would give plenary absolution to Coleridge fgr hi§
seeming presumption. Hamlet's thoughts swarmed so that he
could not see his duty ; if they put on one sheK all the books
Coleridge proposed to write, and on another aU. he did write,
the one would be a library that would take a whole librarian
to itseM, the other Httle better than a coUeetion of Ipvely
fragments. Ho^mlet's father's ghost sent hipi on a
diflcult errajid, and he always tried to go, resolving, re-
resolving, and ending the same. It was not that he was not
faithful and did not want to go, but that he had never
finished thinking the matter out. The moment he was
about to do the work up came a new speculation, a new re-
flnemeiit. He split the straw, biit then there were two straws,
He iadulged in any pretext for the glorious power of doing
nothing, thinking the matter over again, and gaining a con-
scientious looking excuse for delay. It was this perpetual

54

putting a tMng off because he -was not ready, because
he had not done thinking about it, that explained one of the
most terrible passages in the whole play — where the King was
found by Hamlet at his prayers. There was a chance for
kOling him, but because there was the chance, that was not
the time for doing it. "Would that be executing judgment, to
kill a man who did not know he was about to be kiUed?
Should the executioner strike his victim from behind ? And
with what looked like the perfection of malice, like an outcome
of demoniacal passion, Hamlet said he would not kill him then,
lest he should send him to heaven, but would kill him at some
time favourable for his going to heU. If Hamlet meant that,
he would be justified, because the theory of the play was that
he was there to execute vengeance against murder, and an
execution that sent a man to heaven would not be vengeance
against murder. But there was no earnestness in Hamlet's
speech, except as an excuse for doing nothing. When Hamlet
had not got time to think, he was prompt enough. When he
ran Polonius through, he did it quickly ; there was then no
room for his indecision, his scrupulous conscience, his over-
refinement. When Hannlet did a thing well it was simply
because there was no time to think about it. His promptitude'
arose from his inability to exercise his Teutonic introspection.
With regard to Hamlet's madness, one theory was that he was
not mad at all, but'only pretending, and the other was that he
Was mad from the beginning. He (Mr. Dawson) incUned to
the belief that the inind of Hamlet was thoroughly un-
hinged from his first appearance, not on account of the revel-
ation by the Ghost, but on account of his mother's hasty
marriage, of her unfaithfulness to the memory of the late Kmcf,
of her gross sensuality, of her inability to feel any compunction
for what she had done. He had thought all this over till he

55

was mad, and Us mind never recovered its tone. His madness
as a consequence, was fitful — now lie was sane enough to
determine to be insane, but sometimes be was insane enough
to act irresponsibly. If they regarded Hamlet as altogether
sane or altogether insane, the play would be sadly spoUed.
Only Hamlet, when mad,, was not like somebody who was not
Hamlet ; for lunacy did not destroy the individual character
but intensified it. Some said, why should Hamlet affect mad-
ness ? There was a great reason for it. Madmen had liberties ;
they might peep, and gossip, and pry, without reproach ; and ■
Hamlet wanted to come at the knowledge of what the Ohost
had told him in a way that he could make known. The secret
of his father's death was so given him that he could not well
put it in court. If they went before a hard-headed judge, and
said they had heard something from a ghost, he would order
the ghost to be produced. Hamlet was burdened with a secret
that ca;me to him supernaturally, and he could not bring it to
bear, and therefore he must get it confirmed by some form of
evidence. What was he to do ? He would feign madness in
order that he may be able to peep and pry, to watch the King
in a way that would not be tolerated from a sane man, to say
sharp things to see if he could provoke his mother to tears ;
and, by-and-by, he got the players to play a play that should
make the King wince, that thus he might get the evidence
which he had got from the Ohost but could not say. One of
the early difficulties in the play was the levity which Hamlet
mixed up with serious things and serious words. It had been
a great perplexity to some people .that the Ohost had hardly
told his terribletalebeforeJTamZei called him "Old Truepenny,"
and "the old boy in the cellar." If this were unnatural, what a
blot and a blunder — ^if true, what discrimination in the master,
who at a time of such emotion made Hamlet break out with

56

what looked like the levity of shallowness and the silliness of
fatuity ! But there was the justification of history. When a
man's mind was terribly over-wrought, levity was one of the
means by which the overcharge was distributed again. A jest
was like a lightning rod ; and if the cloud were perilously full
the rod would [take it off and> distribute it. When the First
Napoleon sat in council he whittled away at the arm of the
chair — not because he did not think of what he was
about, but because he thought too much. When Croniwell
was goiag to sign King Charles's death warrant, he took the
pen and wiped it on Harry Martin's mouth. Did they think
OromweU was a fribble, and did not know what he was about?
He terribly knew it, but that rough coarse joke was a relief,
though Cromwell did not know why he did it. In such ways
the mind was saved from over-balance. Stupid people never
did such things — a vessel that was not full did not run over,
As Hamlet was not a hero, so poor Ophelia was not a heroine.
She wasan admirable specimen of avery commoh-tj^e woman — •
especially Teutonic woman. A large part of the women of the
G-ermanie race had no character. They had softness, amiability,
an ability to show the die of man's impress, to make way for
it. That was the ideal woman of the Germanic race. English-
men Hked it ; very few Englishmen could do with a French
wife, she would be too quick. If a woman knew some few
accomplishments, and was able to talk a little sense, they were
satisfied. When the average Englishman described a woman,
she was aU negation. She should not talk loud, not stride
wide, nor do this nor that, not be learned, not fond of ink too
much — ^she might be fond of him, that was the only excess
English opinion allowed a woman to indulge in. Provided
this type of woman had beauty — which she often had when
young — the want of everything else was very much excused

57

to her. Wonieii were interesting to men in proportion to
their neutrality. In the glorious days of France, wit and
intellect were the charm of the damie de salon. Whoever
charged Englishwomen with much wit? What salon in London
was ever more famous for its wit than for its mUlinery? When
were Englishwomen ever guilty of the legerete or wit of the
Frenchwoman ? Ophelia was the perfect flower of the Teutonic
woman. She was lovely, she was innocent. Poor darHng ! She
had hardly any faults about her ; she was charming to behold,
Very useful, exceedingly amiable, obedient to her father in the
m.ost filially affectionate way. In this country this type of
woman had been so loved that many women ran about and
boasted of it. They said "You find in me all the domestic
virtues," They prided themselves on stupidity. They said,
"Look at me) I have a double chin; I fcaow nothing much
■except pots and pickle-pans." They were beautiful in their
season, but it was soon over. Fancy Ophelia in middle age !
She woxdd have been fat, she would have kept fair, when she
was forty. He was sorry for her, but glad she died. She
was the sweetest, most natural, most amiable character that
Shakespeare perhaps ever drew. Let anyone contrast her with
TjadAj Madbethi They would say, " I should very much prefer
Ophelia for a wife." Very well; as far as he was eoncemed,
they were welcome to have her. Ophelia was very lovely and
very loving, and he pitied her ; for it was this engagingness,
this softness, that made her tragic fate so tragic. Shakespeare
never gave way to the feentimetLtalism of mankind, and he
never did a truer thing than when he painted this sweet, soft
white dove athwart the black cloud of doom that brought her
at last to death. Shakespeare had nothing to do with "poetic
■justice ;" he represented human life, and he well knew that
the guilty entailed suffering on the innocent, that the babe at

58

home suffered for the father's sin. It had often tieen asked
■why Shakespeare should have made Ophelia, when she became
mad, sing such ditties. Well, a man often got famous for the
want of a vice which, if we knew Ms secret thought, was the
one that haunted him most ; and when the restraint was off,
that which had been hidden came out, as those who were
acquainted with lunacy well knew. A's long as St. George
kept the saddle the dragon was kept under, but suppose St.
George out of the saddle — then the dragon might leap up.
Then it was said, how did Ophelia come to know such songs ?
Ah ! How did people know things ? Would everyone in that
assembly like him to know that iiiey knew the things they did
know ? This poor girl was by nature amorous, and in madness
out came those things which had been concealed. Besides,
those were not decorous days. He did not find anything un-
natural in it. There were many things permissible in secret
that only becanie shameful when uttered. There were in-
decences that were only indecences in the ear ; they might be
of the earth earthy, but the earth was a very good thing, and
not to be despised. Mr. Dawson then spoke of the tragic fight
at the grave, holding that it was thoroughly true to nature,
and that Ba/mlet was stung at the time by self-reproach for his
hard-heartedness to ^Ophelia.

59

ON "HAMLET."
II.

IT lias been suspected, that the enthusiasm for Shakespeare's
works shown by some students is a fiction or a fashion.
It is not so ; the justification of that enthusiastic admiration is
in the fact that every increase of knowledge and deepening of
wisdom in the critic or the student do but show still greater
knowledge and deeper wisdom in the great poet. "When, too,
it is found that his judgment is equal to his genius, and that
his industry is on a par with his inspiration, it becomes impos-
sible to wonder or admire too much. With the old story ou
which the play of "Hamlet" is founded, Shakespeare makes
short work. The original is a rude tale of adulteiy, murder,
aoad revenge ; in the hands of Shakespeare it becomes ' ' Hamlet,
•Prince of Denmark." The time of the old tale he adopts, as
shown by the passage —

"Since yet thy qioatriee looks raw and red.

After the Danish aword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to ua,"
is a period before the Norman conquest, when England was
under the sovereignty of the Northmen, as in the ,days of
Canute, or paid tribute to the Danish power. The secret of
the great popularity of the play of " Hamlet," and the best
'key to the study of it, is that it is the history of a man's mind,
and all men feel something of themselves in Hawlet. His
subjection to the spiritual part of his nature; his communion
with thoughts of another world; his scepticism; Ms thinking
too precisely on the event; his being propelled rather than
propelling; his being driven like a leaf before the wind; his
waiting for circumstances — these and other characteristics are
ehaJred more or less by all. Not again entering at length into

60

tlie question of Hamlefs madneBS, the lecturer quoted the
saying that some definitions of madness would let loose half
the inmates of Bedlam, and others would put nine-tenths of
the world into strait jackets ; and explained that madness
might he taken to be a freedom from, or a defiance of, the
ordinary rules that govern the life of man. AH that Hamht
was before his father's death, as testified by Ophelia and
others ; what he became after he had suffered from his dear
father's death, his mother's disgusting marriage, and his own
disappointment in being set aside from his lawful ambition
and his crown, to be a court idler, a sort of younger
brother; and then what he became after he had seen his
father's ghost, must be carefully studied and compared, in
order to arrive at an understanding of his madness. His mind
was sorely outraged, his faith in women destroyed, his pleasure
in life taken from him ; unfixedness and derangement had.
begun; the fearful duty laid upon him by the terrible revel-
ation completed the work, and Hamlet is by turns reasonable
and unreasonable ; now suffering under involuntary disorder,
and now feigning madness and committing, intentional errors.
After some other remarks on the peculiarities of Hamlet's
character, the lecturer went on to consider some of the minor
characters. The King, though a vile sinner, carries himself
royally, sways the sceptre with dignity, and wears the crown
with grace. Mr. Dawson read the soliloquy, in which the
wretched man gives ear to his conscience, repents of the sin
by which he won his queen, his ambition, and his crown, but
cannot give up the fruits of sin — doubts the worth of any
repentance that can bend the knees but not release the grasp
on evil gains ; shows the difference between wishing and willing,
and HLustrates "the foUy of motive-mongering while the indi-
vidual self remains." The last words, "All may be well," are

61

the saddest and subtlest of all; for in tKfem there is self-
flattery of the soul, a hope that struggle, though baffled, may
be accepted, instead of ceasing to do evil and learning to do
well, followed by perseverance in religious duty without
change of life. Next came Polonius — a respectable, super-
annuated, formal, euphuistic diplomat — a touch of a fogy, but
by no means a fool; full of maxims, old stores got by ex-
perience, but of little service in the emergences of strange and
unexpected circumstances, itching for former importance, and
fussUy thrusting his finger into every pie. He is mentally
the very opposite of Hamlet, whom he has exasperated by the
part he has taken with regard to the succession to the crown,
and who delights to tease him from antipathy and the provo-
cation which his peculiarities always give to minds like that of
Hwmlet. Eeturning for a moment to Ophelia, the lecturer
recommended comparison of her with Madge Wildfire, and
spoke slghtingly of the objection raised to the Danish lady's
singing expressions taken from Elizabethan literature. Horatio
received a few words of hearty praise; he is treu and f est — the
very man to be Hamlet's friend. Then came the Queen : of
aU knowledge of the murder of her husband at the time of her
marriage the lecturer absolved her; but her guilt was, that
when she knew it, she still remained with bim who won her
by such foul means. Sensual, without conscience, able to give
such love as she had to a murderer, she is nearly utterly vile :
a touch here and there showing that even she was not com-
pletely reprobate. A rake at heart, she became vile : true,
she was a woman, and women are said, to be angels ; but if so,
there are great varieties in. angels. The lecturer passed on to
defend the introduction of the grave-diggers and their careless
traditional wit and ancient jokes. Toltaire had strongly
reviled the grave-digging scene, and spoke of Shakespeare

62

making his characters play at bowls with skulls upon the
ptage. This was one of those generaHsatiops of Voltaire the
yery absurdity of ■whicb was their fun, as when he spoke of
the English as a people -v^ho cut off their kings' heads and
their horses' tails, and who had a hundred religions and only
one sauce. His defence rested on three grounds : the power
a,nd love of the English to pass from graye to gay; the co-
p? esence in ^eaj life of tragedy, comedy, and farce ; and the
artistic dftrkeniug of the gloom by these momentary flashes of
light. O'^er- wrought f eeHng requires relief ; grave-diggers do
jest over graves, and sorrow feels more sorrowful than, ever
■^^hea it b-,ea*8 tbe laughter pf the next house or the street. To
the asid man the isxin is too bright ; th,e bereaved mother feels
ajU. the more a,lone whgn the yoices of the children at play
sound in her sad ear^. In watching the grave-diggers we see
how little wq,y tragedy extends,' 4-8 an illustration of this, the
lecturer mentioned the caricatures by the French of them-
s,elves, which aippea;red during the recent siege of P^ri^, In
one of these, one of nos hramet, gorgeously arrayed, js incited
to the comba,t by a, heroine in Phrygiaja cap, who, ppinting to
the distant horizon, on which the Germans could be just
descried,- ejsdaims, " Es sont la:" whereupon the hero fires his
revpl^^ and lets off his gun ! Such jests on such subjects a;t
such a time ; such ia life. A vindication of the slow movement
of the play; of the, accidental way in which the catastrophe is
brought about, and the, gloom in which the drama closer
(Shakespeare not being a dealer ia "poetic justice," but a
paiinter of real life), brought the lecture to a close. *

^.^l:^^^^'

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